Rural communities are confined by a lack of resources - both with the availability of local funding and with the ability to recruit and retain a workforce with the expertise needed to fully implement all requirements necessary to ensure public health services for all Minnesotans. 

In 2024, leaders representing public health agencies in south central and southwest began exploring a partnership with leaders from Minnesota State University, Mankato Department of Applied Health Science. The goal of the partnership is to identify ways rural public health agencies could utilize students and faculty support to assist local public health in meeting foundational requirements such as public health communication and data collection and analysis. Not only would this partnership benefit local public health by bridging workforce and capacity gaps, but it will also benefit the university through enhanced student educational experiences, allowing students graduating from the University, to be well connected to future employers and ready to start their roles on day one of employment. 

From this promising idea, the Collaborative for Rural Public Health Innovation was launched. The collaborative obtained a $530,000 2-year grant from the Minnesota Department of Health to explore and test the effectiveness of this partnership in alleviating challenges in delivering public health services. Health & Human Services of Faribault & Martin Counties is the fiscal host and organizational leader overseeing this work.

Over the next two years, this project will explore the following learning points:

1) What opportunities exist for increasing capacity and cross jurisdictional sharing between public health departments within a large rural region?

2) Will developing capacity within higher educational institutions support local rural public health agencies increase their capacity to carry out foundational public health capabilities related to assessment and surveillance, communications, community partnership development, equity, policy development and organizational competencies?

3) Will fostering relationships between higher educational institutions and local public health agencies result in greater number of placements for student internship, preceptorship, and full-time employment opportunities?

4) Upon completion of this pilot, will public health students be more prepared for the demands of public health work in rural communities?

This proposed project will help Minnesota Public Health system identify how to utilize and build a future workforce to support rural communities in achieving capabilities. This work has the potential to create a model for other universities and local public health agencies to adopt to mutually support population health improvement and alleviate workforce constraints that lead to the inability to implement foundational public health services.

CRPHI aims to support local public health agencies in meeting their foundational public health responsibilities by incorporating projects that support local agency needs into course work, by offering public health internships for undergraduate and graduate students and by identifying opportunities to share responsibilities or workload across partner counties.  In 2024, participating public health agencies completed an assessment to determine gaps and needs in meeting core responsibilities. The foundational capabilities identified with the most gaps in the service area included Assessment & Surveillance, Accountability and Performance Management and Communications.  The Collaborative has developed sub-committees to coordinate internships and coursework starting in Spring 2025 focused on reducing these gaps and supporting work across the service area.